


Caleuche (A Ship Of The Night)

by that_one_kid



Category: The Expanse (TV), The Expanse Series - James S. A. Corey
Genre: Amos doesn't have a heart, But Naomi does, Dark World, Gen, Poor Amos always gets hurt, Surreal, fae, sequel fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-20 01:14:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9468866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/that_one_kid/pseuds/that_one_kid
Summary: A sequel to Essex(A Ship With No Port). Fae/Surreal AU of the Expanse series. Naomi is almost done with her ship, but she needs just a few more spare parts.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a bit more Fey Naomi & Amos: @ legitimate_salvage (ifinkufreaky)

There was a planet. On that planet, there were many things. Vast forests, full of blue fireflies and infinite, slumbering metal figures. Spiders the size of baseballs that spun razor-sharp and diamond-hard webs. A tiny, fragile human settlement. A log cabin, set off in the woods, off the human path. A stack of firewood.

There was a man. No one special, to the untrained eye. He was just a collection of so many moving clockwork parts, with a heart, mind, and soul like any other man. He wandered off of the path, like many had done, and was lured to the cabin in the forest. He disappeared. But this man was not like any other, and his disappearance caused questions in the minds of the town medic, and the pilot who’d flown the teardrop of humanity out into the strangeness. They had influence, and under their directive, the humans spread out from their tiny town, armed with cutters and guns and shovels.

There was a species, capable of creation and adaption to new environments like no other species. They were therefore infinitely useful when reduced to their component parts. They were also a parasite, spreading through any environment and overwhelming those that lived within that realm. They called themselves humanity.

There was a woman, and a man who was not quite a man, and they lived in a cabin in the forest. Stories of magic and witchcraft spread through the parasites, and they smiled gleaming smiles to know the same fears of the mammals in the dark lived unchanged through the vacuum of space. This is a story about them.

“Amos.” Naomi called, from the door. “The creation is nearly complete, but I cannot build without components. We will need to hunt again soon.”

“Yes, boss,” Amos responded, and she caught a glimpse of his trademark smile, the smile that she couldn’t quite grasp the meaning of. Half man-servant, half the heartless thing she’d been fascinated by, Amos had become inexplicably entangled with her plans.

“For now, though, I have a few more segments to repair. Fetch some food and water,” she said, and he turned, walking into the forest at a casual pace.

Naomi turned back into the little cabin, strolling across the rough dirt floors and tugging open a hidden door. Inside, the intricate interlacings of the creation glowed with blue fireflies and tugged at the air, as if trying to escape. She gave the room a sharp-toothed smile and set to work, modifying and building to ensure that the ship would be ready. There was a sudden crash outside, and then the clamorous sound of shouting. She froze. No one came this deep into the forest, where the Gonturan webs were so dense. Still, Amos was never loud. Something _new_ was happening. The humans were adapting again. She stretched, and left the hidden room, shutting the door tightly behind her. Outside, the flash of torches traced incandescent fiery paths against the dark sky and forest paths. Naomi walked to the door, opening it and calling to the three men outside.

“Hello? Are you lost?” her voice was just slightly accented, but it carried clearly through the thick brush.

“Who are you?” one of the men growled, and the others took menacing steps forwards. Naomi stopped, moving to return to her house. She hadn’t anticipated they’d be this hostile, and she was unarmed. The smallest of the men closed the distance between them rapidly, grabbing her upper arm before she had time to move back into the house.

“Where’s Holden?” he said, his dark skin flushed with fear or anger. “What did you do with him?”

“Who? I don’t know who you’re talking about!” she protested, twisting out of his grip but finding herself surrounded by the other men. They were wearing some kind of protective outer shell, like large metallic beetles. They held simple mechanical devices that Namoi suspected projected crude metallic slugs. The focus on metal as the only material for building was really quite small-minded, but she supposed they were a very young species.

“You’re a witch, ain’t ya?” the largest man said, lifting his device and thrusting it towards her face. “You charm us into the woods, see, and we never come back out!” Naomi slowly touched the geometric shape inked on her wrist in blue ink with a light brush of one fingertip, and she saw Amos appear at the edge of the clearing. His own mark was gleaming blue through his rough fabric shirt.

“What’s she doing?” the other beetle-man asked, grabbing her other arm. “Lookit, a charm! She is a witch!”

“Okay, this has gotten out of hand,” the man who’d initially grabbed her arm said, moving to pull the others off of her. The larger one shoved him, and he slammed into a tree trunk, his head connecting with a thud and his body slumping, unconscious, to the ground.

“What do you do with witches, Jerry?” one asked the other, with a sadistic twist to his mouth that suggested he knew the answer.

“You burn ‘em!” the other cried, apparently unaware of the rhetorical nature of the question. He yanked on Naomi’s still-healing arm, broken in the last hunt. She yelped, and he grinned.

“Get off of me,” she snarled, and Amos broke from cover at a dead run. The larger man caught his motion, turning and firing a bullet straight through his chest. Without breaking speed, Amos twisted the arm of the man she’d spoken to, peeling his grip from her arm before snapping his neck with a sharp motion of one arm. Naomi took a step back, but the second man stood his ground, his gun held ready and aimed at the back of Amos’s head. She snatched up the gun the dead man had dropped and dropped the other attacker with a single shot to the back of his inexplicably unshelled head. Amos spun and the sound of the gunshot, and then gave her a nod. No smile. She found it unsettling, another break from the expected nature of the day.

“You called?” Amos said, gesturing at the fading glow of his mark, just above the spreading stain of blood from the gunshot wound. What had the men called their marks? A charm. Well, it was as accurate as any other name.

“It has been handled.” she said, and he nodded, turning back to the forest. “Repair yourself first. You are not invincible, you know.”

“But I am expendable,” he answered, turning to her with a look of child-like confusion. This bothered her, on a level she did not fully grasp.

“You are not.” she snapped. “I spent valuable resources linking your charm to mine.”

“Yes, boss.” Amos said, and she put her hand on his back to lead him inside. The warmth of his back reminded her of the other man - unlike the others. The one who had caught her eye before she had caught his, and the only one to think fast enough to try to escape the hunt. She regretted his expendability, as well.

"Go and repair yourself. I can't repair people." she said, and headed out to retrieve the three new parts for the project. Her eyes shone again with blue fireflies, but unnoticed by her, a single tear slid down her cheek. Amos stood in the cabin doorway and tried to understand what it meant. 

the end


End file.
